Covid-19 continues to affect the death penalty nationally and so we have seen many executions postponed although not in Missouri where Walter Barton was executed last night despite strong claims of innocence. It was the first execution since the begin of the pandemic.

As always we discussed the legal developments which we had been able to collect from various inside and outside sources during the week making sure that these were passed on to those not present and in particular to those who had had recent rulings and to who those rulings could apply. Of course as we don’t pretend to be up on everyone’s issues it feels especially good when we get to hear that the piece of information passed on “should be helpful.”

During these difficult times we believe it is more important than ever to keep things as positive as we can and so we thought we would share the following email from Ashley Massey, Graduate Assistant, Prison Studies at UNA. It was the top of our agenda at our meeting today and it will also give you an idea just how fortunate we are.